Review: Clan of the Cave Bear

Synopsis: With a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves The Clan of the Cave Bear.  A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind.

Title: The Clan of the Cave Bear
Author: Jean M. Auel
Pages: 495
Genres/Shelves: Historical Fiction
Originally Published: May 1980
This Edition: 2011 by Bantam
This Book on Goodreads
This Review on Goodreads

Yesterday was one of those moments where I finished a book and went “… Damn, I wish I’d known while reading this that it would make it onto that really short list of books I wish I could read again for the first time.” I probably would have savoured it more.

This book is full of unlovely things.

Ayla is a cro-magnon child separated from her people. She is taken in by a clan of Neanderthals, less evolved than the cro-magnon, and raised to live by their methods. It’s equally a story of love and abuse. Love from some of her newfound family, but abuse from a man who can’t understand her desire for more than her assigned role as a female in the clan.

For anyone else who doesn’t know too much about Neanderthals vs Cro Magnons, like me, all you have to know is that the cro-magnon (like Ayla) were of the same species as us, and that the Neanderthals (who raised Ayla) were a separate species, though we do share some of their DNA from interbreeding. The cro-magnons eventually replaced the Neanderthals when the Neanderthals failed to keep evolving.

Clan of the Cave Bear had the power to make me absolutely livid, without making me angry at the author or the book itself. This book is ultimately one girl’s fight to fit in and her journey towards a greater equality than what she’s been told she has the right to. So of course it’s full of all kinds of horrible treatment of women, and of course it’s going to make a modern reader a bit frustrated, but (as in my case) completely fascinate them as well. It’s so interesting to read about the clan’s reasoning for dividing the gender roles so clearly. It makes sense in a way given that species’ limited ability to learn and retain too many skills, but it’s really satisfying to see such a great character challenge that.

I think that dynamic is what made this book so riveting to me. Here you have this really advanced girl being raised by a species who are essentially backwards by comparison. Despite trying her best to conform to their ways, that extra little bit of forebrain power sparks a rebellious nature in her which pretty much leads to every critical point in the novel. And maybe it’s just me, but that is so freaking cool. And kind of tragic.

The writing:
The writing is a bit simplistic and kind of gets in the way at times. I read the sentence “She woke up screaming!” three times in this book. Why is there an exclamation mark in prose outside of dialogue? There are also some painstakingly long sections about herbal plant applications, and many of the concepts and ideals of the clan are repeated ad nauseam.

The characters:
Ayla is such a well-developed protagonist. It’s nice to be able to so firmly identify myself as being on a character’s side from the first few chapters in a book. Usually an author has to convince me to like their characters but this one was so easy. I just love her.
The antagonist is perfectly horrible.

Me on: YouTube | Goodreads | Instagram

5 Ships- Favourite